The Last Chronicle of Barset was published in weekly parts in 1866–67 and in book form by Smith, Elder in 1867. Trollope himself considered it his best novel, and many critics agree. Josiah Crawley, the perpetual curate of Hogglestock, is one of the great characters in English fiction — a man of towering intellect, ferocious pride, and absolute poverty, whose refusal to accommodate himself to the world’s expectations has made him a pariah in the diocese and a tyrant in his own household.
Crawley is accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds — a trivial sum that, for a man in his position, represents the difference between respectability and ruin. He cannot account for how the cheque came into his possession. His memory, damaged by years of overwork, malnutrition, and depression, fails him. He may have found the cheque; he may have received it; he cannot remember, and his inability to remember tortures him because it means that he cannot be certain he did not steal it.
The novel follows the legal proceedings against Crawley and their effect on everyone connected to him: his long-suffering wife, who loves him and cannot reach him; his daughter Grace, whose engagement to Major Grantly is jeopardized by the scandal; Archdeacon Grantly, who cannot forgive his son for wanting to marry into disgrace; and the wider Barsetshire community, which divides along lines of sympathy, snobbery, and self-interest. Trollope handles the multiple plotlines with a mastery that recalls Dickens at his best, but without Dickens’s tendency toward caricature. Every character, even the most minor, is rendered with the same patient attention to motive and feeling.
The Death of Mrs. Proudie
The novel contains one of the most famous episodes in Trollope’s career: the death of Mrs. Proudie. Trollope later told the story in his Autobiography — he overheard two clergymen at his club complaining that Mrs. Proudie was tiresome and that he should have killed her off long ago, and resolved on the spot to do so. Her death scene, which comes unexpectedly and is rendered with restraint that makes it devastating, marks the end of the Barsetshire world. Without Mrs. Proudie to tyrannize, the diocese loses its most formidable personality, and Trollope knew it was time to stop.
Collecting The Last Chronicle of Barset
First edition (Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1867): Two volumes, cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, two volumes, fine: $3,000–$8,000
- Very good: $1,000–$3,000
- Parts issue (32 weekly parts): $2,000–$6,000 complete